Search for Melanie continues

Monday

Jul 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2012 at 3:35 PM

The man leading a private investigation into the disappearance of the Woburn teen says he is closer to learning what happened to her.

Bruce Coulter

It’s been 23 years since Melanie Melanson was reported missing. Now, the man leading a private investigation into the disappearance of the Woburn teen says he is closer to learning what happened to her.

Private investigator Michael Garrigan of Advanced and Private Investigations of Woburn, who has been working on the case since 1991, said a phone call from an anonymous tipster could lead to truth about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

Garrigan said he received a tip last week after an interview about the case aired on a local television station. The caller suggested investigators search a wooded area in Stoneham.

Using that information, 11 teams of cadaver dogs and searchers combed the woods in the northwest and northeast quadrants of the Middlesex Fells Reservation in Stoneham Saturday.

In the months leading up to that tip, Garrigan says he fielded two other calls suggesting teams search those areas. The call last week confirmed the information he received.

Garrigan said the caller had been sitting on the information for the past nine years and became “very emotional” talking about it.

Melanie, then a freshman at Woburn High School, was 14 when she disappeared on Oct. 27, 1989, after attending a party in a densely wooded area of town. She would have turned 15 on Nov. 1.

Garrigan said he’s received a lot of information since November, largely because of the attention the case has garnered in the media.

Search for answers

Alan Tate, who, with Maureen Hancock, co-founded Boston-based Mission for the Missing (missionforthemissing.com) in Boston in 2009, was among those searching for answers Saturday.

“Dogs had indications Saturday in a couple of areas,” said Tate.

He said after a dog indicates there may be something of interest in a particular area, a second dog and handler are sent into the same area to verify the findings of the first.

“We don’t tell them (the second team) why they are going in. We send them in blind,” said Tate. “We want a confirmation without giving them information.”

On Saturday, the second dog and handler were given GPS coordinates of a search segment and the dog showed interest in the same area, said Tate.

Tate and Garrigan said a forensic dig will be conducted in the Montvale Avenue area of Woburn on Aug. 17, based on information discovered as a result of a previous search.

“We had dogs in the area and soil samples that came back positive for human decomposition,” he said.

Garrigan said next month’s search will be overseen by Dr. William Bass, founder of the University of Tennessee’s forensic anthropology unit known as the Body Farm, where scientists study the effect of the environment on human decomposition. Bass was an expert witness at the Casey Anthony trial in Florida, in which a toddler’s remains were found in a wooded area.

Where they go from there will be determined by the results.

“We’ll see what happens then before we take the next step,” Tate said.